CSIR to build India’s first innovation complex

Kolkata, Sep 7 (IANS) In an initiative to marry science and industry, the head of India’s premier industrial research and development body Friday exhorted business leaders to contribute to the setting up of the country’s first Innovation Complex near here.

“We have brought all the laboratories under Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) under one umbrella so that research can be translated to commerce for the growth of the country’s economy. There will be pilot plants at the facility as well,” said CSIR Director General Samir K. Brahmachari, while delivering a lecture on ‘Frugal Innovation and Beyond: New CSIR for New India’.

The Rs.100 crore CSIR Innovation Complex - a 22-acre facility in South 24 Parganas district’s Baruipur, about 30 km from Kolkata - is aimed at boosting commercialisation of innovations. It is scheduled to be completed by 2014.

“In West Bengal, we will be looking at leather, pottery, surgical instruments, agro-implements, jute and gems and jewellery, for starters,” said Brahmachari, about CSIR’s focus in industries.

“Industries should pump in their resources in the research and development sector. Scientists can convert money into knowledge, but only the businessmen and industries can translate knowledge into money,” said Brahmachari.